Armies of Exigo

The perfect game for that nostalgic masochist in your life.

No developer in their right mind would be upset if you compared their game to Starcraft. The Blizzard classic set a new standard for strategy games five years ago and sparked an excessive number of copycats. It took a few years for real-time strategy developers to absorb the model before finally breaking through it in terms of technology and design. While some gamers still hold Starcraft up as the standard by which all other real-time strategy games are judged, none can deny that lots of new features have been introduced in the meantime.

Armies of Exigo hearkens back to the days when every RTS that came our way seemed to be cast in the Starcraft mold. Though this makes it a very traditional and ultimately unsurprising game, it also means that the developers have the benefit of five years of refinement to look back on. Consequently Armies of Exigo seems like an anachronism -- a familiar but finely polished take on the previous generation of strategy games.

Taking place after the massive war known as the Rage, the new game finds three sides competing for supremacy. The Empire, the victors in the last war, are composed of human and elven allies. Arrayed against them are the recently united tribes of beastmen, who can field a variety of savage and terrifying fighters. A new force called the Fallen is also entering the fray. Not much is known about them yet. They seem to have sprung from the shadows of the earth to make war on both beasts and men.

The actual events of the story are fairly standard but the game almost makes up for that with some really stunning cutscenes. Though the actual content of the scenes is a little conventional, the production values are first rate. The visuals have that cinematic quality that's rarely seen outside of the Blizzard brand. Unfortunately, the story here is still just typical fantasy fare.

There are twelve massive missions for each of the game's three factions. You'll definitely get your money's worth out of the campaign as many of the missions take upwards of an hour to complete. When you factor in reloads and restarts, you're talking more about a couple of hours per mission. While the quantity seems like a bargain, the missions here are just too hard. They require constant attention and allow for virtually no mistakes. Let your attention lapse for one minute and you'll be overrun and completely annihilated.

It's in part because of the mission design and the computer-brain power that manages the build order for your opponent. The enemy always seems able to come at you within the first few minutes with as big a force as he can muster. Since there's no way to issue orders while paused or adjust the game speed on the fly, you'll find yourself lagging behind the enemy AI almost immediately. It's almost as if the developers assumed that the game's difficulty equates to its potential for fun.

We've had more fun playing against other flesh-brains in the multiplayer aspect of the game. In addition to the straight one-on-one matches, the game supports team play for up to eight players as well as capture the flag and king of the hill modes. There aren't too many people out there playing the game right now so if you're considering getting it for the multiplayer, buy a copy for a friend while you're at it.

The strategies for the different sides are distinct enough to keep things interesting but equivalent enough that you can move from one to the other without too much trouble. While the Empire and Beast units are pretty similar, their distinctions in terms of supporting units is awesome. Where the humans and elves merely build houses to support more units, the Beasts raise massive beasts that not only serve as meat for armies but also act as mounts for other units. The Fallen, who are the most alien of the factions, must root their actual builders in place in order to raise the population limit. Those are some nice twists that add unique flavor to the game.

Though the Fallen are the most alien of the factions, they, along with the other two factions, will seem all too familiar to fans of real-time strategy games. They have to taint the land around them before they can build on it and focus on building massive, swarming armies of relatively weak units. The Empire faction is made up of the traditional medieval human set complete with elven archers and white-robed priests. The Beasts are a little more inventive but still field ogres, trolls, goblins and the like.

Capping groups at 15 units could potentially create a real headache in terms of controlling the armies. Armies of Exigo allows you to combine these small groups into one of four larger Super Groups. This extra layer of flexibility is definitely welcome but, given the size of the maps and the overall shape of the action, it would be much easier if the designers had just increased the unit cap for the basic groups. Keeping tabs on the status of the units within each individual group is basically impossible without lots of management